Instances of Persons who have given Signs of Life
after their Death, and have withdrawn themselves respectfully to make
room for more worthy Persons

[This is taken from Augustine Calmet's Phantom World, originally published in 1850, revised and edited by D. J. McAdam, 2010.
Copyright as such.]

Tertullian relates an instance to which he had been witness—de meo
didici. A woman who belonged to the church, to which she had been given
as a slave, died in the prime of life, after being once married only, and
that for a short time, was brought to the church. Before putting her in the
ground, the priest offering the sacrifice and raising his hands in prayer,
this woman, who had her hands extended at her side, raised them at the same
time, and put them together as a supplicant; then, when the peace was given,
she replaced herself in her former position.

Tertullian adds that another body, dead, and buried in a cemetery,
withdrew on one side to give place to another corpse which they were about
to inter near it. He relates these instances as a suite to what was said by
Plato and Democritus, that souls remained some time near the dead bodies
they had inhabited, which they preserved sometimes from corruption, and
often caused their hair, beard, and nails to grow in their graves.
Tertullian does not approve of the opinion of these; he even refutes them
pretty well; but he owns that the instances I have just spoken of are
favorable enough to that opinion, which is also that of the Hebrews, as we
have before seen.

It is said that after the death of the celebrated Abelard, who was
interred at the Monastery of the Paraclete, the Abbess Heloisa, his spouse,
being also deceased, and having requested to be buried in the same grave, at
her approach Abelard extended his arms and received her into his bosom: elevatis brachiis illam recepit, et ita eam amplexatus brachia sua strinxit.
This circumstance is certainly neither proved nor probable; the Chronicle
whence it is extracted had probably taken it from some popular rumor.

The author of the Life of St. John the Almoner, which was written
immediately after his death by Leontius, Bishop of Naples, a town in the
Isle of Cyprus, relates that St. John the Almoner being dead at Amatunta, in
the same island, his body was placed between that of two bishops, who drew
back on each side respectfully to make room for him in sight of all present; non unus, neque decem, neque centum viderunt, sed omnis turba, quæ
convenit ad ejus sepulturam, says the author cited. Metaphrastes, who
had read the life of the saint in Greek, repeats the same fact.

Evagrius de Pont says that a holy hermit named Thomas, and surnamed
Salus, because he counterfeited madness, dying in the hospital of Daphné,
near the city of Antioch, was buried in the strangers' cemetery, but every
day he was found out of the ground at a distance from the other dead bodies,
which he avoided. The inhabitants of the place informed Ephraim, Bishop of
Antioch, of this, and he had him solemnly carried into the city and
honorably buried in the cemetery, and from that time the people of Antioch
keep the feast of his translation.

John Mosch reports the same story, only he says that it was some women
who were buried near Thomas Salus, who left their graves through respect for
the saint.

The Hebrews believe that the Jews who are buried without Judea will roll
underground at the last day, to repair to the Promised Land, as they cannot
come to life again elsewhere than in Judea.

The Persians recognize also a transporting angel, whose care it is to
assign to dead bodies the place and rank due to their merits: if a worthy
man is buried in an infidel country, the transporting angel leads him
underground to a spot near one of the faithful, while he casts into the
sewer the body of any infidel interred in holy ground. Other Muslims have
the same notion; they believe that the transporting angel placed the body of
Noah, and afterwards that of Ali, in the grave of Adam.

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